Graduating to the crib

Well, not permanently, but today at least. I was changing Zeke's morning diaper, and then planned on putting him down in his co-sleeper for his nap. He puts himself to sleep with his binky and a good swaddle. Since his room is right next to the washer and dryer, I decided to move a load of laundry real quick like, so I swaddled him up, and gave him his binky, and set him in his crib. By the time I was done separating the loads, he was all tuckered out. So cute. I just turned on the monitor (Thanks Jacqui) and went and took a shower. This is him 20 min later. He always gets that arm out of the swaddle. Maybe a rightie?

He LOVES staring at the stripes and dots.

Is there anything sweeter?

Our boy is 5 weeks old!

So we had a fun day at church. Oh, we got callings finally. We dodged the bullet for 4 months due to the baby. However, when they finally got us, they got us good. We're assistant NURSERY LEADERS! They were really nice though, and gave us the smaller class. They're the newbies, only 18-24 months. They're so darn cute, and there's only like 6 of them. And two will be gone in September. I'm not scared. They loved my little baby Zeke, but we're going to work on not touching, just looking. I guess he'll have a strong immune system later in life.





He's pretty darn cute. This is my FAVORITE outfit. It's just so cute. I don't think we bought it, so I'm pretty sure it came down with Nana when she brought us a ton of clothes from Aunt Heather and Shari. Thanks to all of them. Well, Mr. Man has a tendency to ruin all of his outfits before I get a chance to take his pictures, and Sunday, he was super tired for some reason. Maybe because we were out ALL DAY Saturday buying a truck, but whatever. So he kept eating, and sleeping and waking up and eating, and then just falling back to sleep whilst nursing. So I tried to rouse him from his sleep long enough to take his picture, but to no avail. He just keeps falling over on the couch. Josiah and I were laughing so hard. Is that abusive?




It looks like he's falling fast, but it's really in slow motion.

So that's why it's closing.

Well, Josiah is scared of our baby offending people with his cries, so we have to plan our outings carefully. Since Josiah has been wanting to see the batman movie, he planned a movie night at the drive-in. That way, I could feed Zeke, and if he started crying, we'd be in our own car. Well, the last local drive-in is closing down, most likely at the end of the summer, and a lot of people think it's sad. So friday rolls around, and I'm so excited for our date night. We go get tons of snacks, I feed the baby, and we load up the car and we're off. I brought blankets, and the boppy, so I can be totally comfortable. We got there almost an hour early when parking starts, to get a good spot. We had full view of the screen, perfect angle...

We ended up parking next to a church social. They had pizza, I was jealous. This nice girl had a 2 month old baby, and chatted me up about mine. She told me how cute he is, so we were friends right off. So it started getting dark, and the cars just kept coming. By 9 it was dark and the movie was supposed to start at 8:55, but cars were still parking. We had cars on both sides of us, and a nice space between for comfort and what not. Oh no, people found ways to squeeze their hoopties right between us and then the jerks on the left proceeded to hit our car when they got out. The mom was yelling at her kid, cursing and what not.

So the movie finally starts. Meanwhile I had told Josiah about my only drive-in experience when I was little, I can't even remember what movie we watched because the sound didn't work too well, so I couldn't hear anything. So the movie starts and we all tune our dials to the designated station. FUZZ. I couldn't distinguish anything they were saying. I don't even know what the movie was about. Just lots of action and shooting, and violence. We ended up turning our radio off, and just listening to the sound from outside. It worked ok, but it still sucked. Plus someone was smoking the marijuana, so our car reeked after we left. But Zeke slept through the whole movie, so I guess it all worked out ok.

Our big night out

So Tuesday night I had to go grocery shopping, and to get Josiah to come with me I promised a trip to home depot. It was the first time we'd spent any time together in about two weeks, so we had fun. Josiah worked "on call" and logged a total of 210 hours in 2 weeks. So as a reward to himself he decided to buy a grill. Apparently all the dads at work talk about grilling, and now that Josiah's a dad he thinks he needs to grill too. So we went to home depot and spent way too long looking before we picked one out, and tonight he's supposed to put it together and fire it up. (Whatever it takes so that I don't have to cook dinner, right?) And then we went to the grocery store, and Josiah bought every form of meat available. And veggies too. Anyway, the point of this blog is to show how cute our baby looked to go to home depot. Josiah wore him in the Baby Bjorn (ZEKE LOVES IT!), and all the old ladies just thought they were the cutest!

They don't call them milk-guns for nothing!

I've been noticing that my milk has finally come in full strength. Ezekiel is eating really well, and he's not staying on for 45 min anymore. Now he's getting full in 10-20 minutes on just one side. So last night he was on a really good schedule, eating every two to three hours. Well, it was time for him to feed on my left side, and my right side was already full again, so I decided to pump a little. In five minutes of pumping (if that) I looked down at the bottle and there was a full 4 oz. So now i'm just starting to stockpile extra in the freezer. I'm such a champ!

So, if anyone needs breastmilk made of mostly Lucky charms and Granola bars... You know where to come!

One month old!

So on sunday (7/20) I put him in this darling outfit that my visiting teacher Erika bought him. Well, when we got home, I was getting all set to take his picture, and he didn't want to so he pooped all over his outfit. I just figured since he would be one month in just two days, I would put him back in it for his monthly pictures. As soon as I put him in it, and turned to get out the camera, he spit up on his left shoulder. I was so determined to get the pictures, I just wiped it up.

No big deal, right? Well about 2 minutes later, we're just playing on the couch, and BAM!

We went ahead and changed him after that. Apparently he hates this outfit.

Poor Reggie!

So on monday (7/21) it was a beautiful night. Around 7 it was only about 75-80 degrees, so I decided to take a blanket out and just relax with Zeke and Reggie. Josiah was pretending to work in the yard, so he was out there too. All of the sudden, Reggie started limping really bad. I called him over, and inspected his leg thoroughly, but I couldn't find anything. After about five minutes, he disappeared inside, so I had Josiah go check on him. Jo found him under the bed, so he picked up Reggie and carried him back outside. The poor puppy collapsed on the grass and started spontaniously pooping. Laying down. So I was freaking out. I ran inside to check if there was poison he could have gotten into or something. When I came back out, he was throwing up a TON in the lawn. I almost started crying (I may be a bit hormonal, but we really love our dog.) just because we didn't know what could be wrong. So Josiah just brought him on the blanket to lay down, and then I spotted it. In between two of his toes, there was a tiny black dot. Upon closer inspection, it was a stinger. This is the second time he's gotten stung, the first time was on his nose. Apparently he's majorly allergic, so now I'm scared to let him play outside without adult supervision. So this is my poor docile dog letting the baby lay on him.

Three weeks old!

So this is his three week picture. We just got home from church, and he did very well. He sleeps through the first hour, and then I use the boring sunday school time to nurse him. There are so many babies in our ward that it's usually a big social hour in the mother's lounge. I may need to invest in a diaper champ though. When I'm stuck in there nursing and someone comes in and changes their toddler, whew! That diaper pail gets rank!

So, we're in denial that he has red hair, but he totally looks like his Aunt Jacqui in this picture.

And a close up of his baby acne. Thanks for the outfit Lindsey! (I think!)

First sunday at church!!!

So we waited until he was two weeks old to take him to church. Most people say that is soon, but I was feeling pretty good, and I get really bored at home. Plus, I love my ward, and I wanted everyone to see my cute baby before his baby acne came.

This outfit is courtesy of his cousin Lincoln. Thanks buddy!

Bringing home baby!

So Jacqui was supposed to be there for the first week, and then Cindy was coming in the second week. Josiah was taking two weeks off, so he'd be there the whole time. Jacqui ended up not feeling well, so she went straight home to Oregon before we even got home from the hospital. THAT MADE ME SAD.

Lincoln says that Zeke thinks he's strong in this picture.

Then Cindy came down and gave us some relief!

Ezekiel Michael Sanders

Ok, so our little guy was born on a Sunday. I had a little moisture "down there" early Saturday morning, so I didn't know if my water broke, but then it dried up, so I thought not. So after having 4 hours of consistent contractions starting Saturday night, we went into the hospital at 2am Sunday morning. My contractions weren't in a consistent pattern, but they wanted to see if my water broke, so they did a microscope test. After waiting for two hours, they came back with results. (My midwife had to deliver a baby in between.) Finally at 4am, we were admitted into a room.


Since my water had been broken for so long they wanted to put me on Pitocin to speed the delivery, so as not to get an infection. Also, to keep from introducing infection, they don't check your progress until they have to. So Josiah went straight to sleep on the "Dad Chair", but I was so excited I couldn't. Also, they hooked me up to an IV on my left arm, blood pressure monitor that I had to keep on my right arm, and so I was kind of stuck in bed. Oh, and I had a fetal monitor, and a contraction monitor both strapped around my belly. I wasn't in much pain at all, just uncomfortable. The bed sucked. Then around 7 am, I felt a big gush. I didn't know if I had peed myself or what. I was yelling for Josiah across the room, but he was pretty out of it. Then the nurse came in to check on me, and josiah helped me into the bathroom to clean up. My first water break. Then as soon as we got everything cleaned up, Jacqui got there! YAY!


So then they bumped the pitocin up gradually until about 10am. I still wasn't having too regular contractions, and I was like, bring it on ladies!!! The contraction monitor kept slipping off whenever I moved, and they couldn't tell the intensity, so the nurses decided I needed an internal monitor. IN COMES THE EVIL Midwife. Can I just tell you how much I HATE her. So, apparently I still had a forebag of waters, so she had to break that. Then, they shoved this straw thing between my uterine wall, and the baby's head. Zeke had a scab on his scalp for two weeks, so I know it wasn't comfortable for him either. Basically it didn't go in right the first time, so they had to try again. This was the most painful experience of my life. I'm pretty sure she was just stabbing this pencil type object into my soft uterus tissue. I started having SEVERE contractions immediately. Finally she was done and I was in so much pain. The only good thing was I got a catheter for my pee, so I didn't have to deal with getting up any more. Oh when she did this she also got to check my progress, and I was still only at 3 cm, and 80% effaced. My doc two days earlier had told me the same thing, only 100% effaced. That was a blow to my ego. I had been in "labor" for 8 hours, and now I was digressing. Depressing...


So then Josiah stepped it up to the plate, and helped me through the most painful 30 minutes of my life. I was having contractions every 2 minutes, and by now, my pitocin was super strong. My bed was the kind that detaches for delivery, so it kind of sloped downward so i felt like I was sliding off the whole time. I didn't have anything to brace against, so every time I had a contraction I just had to lay there in pain. I thought I was going to die, and I knew I couldn't keep it up for another 8 hours, which is what they were saying. So the nice nurse offered me an epidural, and I said yes. She gave me a shot of Demerol, because it was supposed to take about 30 minutes for the guy to get up there. As soon as she gave me the shot, I was doing so much better, and then the awesome anesthesiologist came in 2 seconds later. He knew I was a vip. So basically then he gave me the epidural, and I was GOLDEN!!! I took a nap, they floored the pitocin and I was good to go.
The nurses came in at 3pm and checked me and I was at 9 cm. I was so excited. I felt rested, and was so excited that it was going to be soon. Then some lady brought in all the delivery stuff and got it ready so that was exciting. Then I felt like I had to poop. By the time the nurses came back for my 3:30 check, I was at 10, and ready to push. So I started pushing and once again Josiah was stellar. He had said during the whole pregnancy that he wasn't going to "look", but he was down there the whole time updating me on progress. I pushed for an hour, and at 4:34, he was born. Once the head was out, I called Jacqui over from the corner where she was banished to, and she watched the body come out. It was so cool. Let me just reiterate, that while I had the epidural, it still hurt, but NOWHERE NEAR AS BAD AS THE EVIL MIDWIFE AND HER INTERNAL MONITOR. I HATE HER.



Just after birth. The gown unsnaps and then you have skin to skin contact.



8 lbs 4.6 oz. Yeah, I felt that!

First father-son moment. How cute are they!

My First Post

Ok, so I don't really know where to start. So much has changed in my life over the past year, and so many people want to keep up on my life (I'm kind of a big deal) that I need to have a universal place for them to blogstalk me. Long story short...

We moved to California August '07

Then in September I got pregnant!

this is me at 40 weeks, but you get the idea!

Then we got sealed in the Oakland Temple March 29th.

Don't mind the fact that I'm huge, I'm pretty pregnant at this point.

And two days later, on March 31, we moved into our new home!

Then I had to sit and wait for my baby. I did decorate the nursery somewhat...

And then on June 22, 2008, he finally was born.